The 2016 Election season has now gone and left a slew of angry citizens in its wake. Most of us now scratch our heads and wonder how we ended up with such a controversial and audacious president. I have also seen people who feel like American Democracy has let them down; their disillusionment is now prompting them to look to alternative ideologies for guidance.
I have long held the suspicion that placing emphasis on political ideas and other abstract ideologies is not practical because their validity cannot always be vindicated. It does not matter how the politics are received by the public; sooner or later, they are going to lose traction and something else will replace it, which definitely would ruffle a lot of feathers. On the St. Olaf campus, students and professors alike have responded to the election of Trump with varying degrees of sadness and terror. I feel that the none too pretty election results and our intense response has shown me that it is indeed not worth it to believe in politics and ideologies.
Instead, I shape my life around the real and concrete things in the world that are here to stay, things like art, literature, music, theater, relationships with friends and family. These have continued to inspire and influence me to this day and will continue to do so to my death. One reason why I place such faith in art and relationships is because they are two of the only human concepts that can endure anything. People have produced groundbreaking works of art throughout every time period and catastrophic event in history. Sometimes it influences politics; Upton Sinclair's The Jungle prompted the founding of the Food and Drug Administration, an act that made sure that all of our food and medicine are safe to consume. We have no reason to believe that a Trump Presidency would stop artistic expression and diminish my deep interest in it.
Furthermore, I place strong emphasis on all different types of artistic expression because it is the only human idea that cannot be corrupted. This is due, simply, to the fact that everyone has a unique definition of what constitutes art. We also have an endless amount of room to come up with new artistic concepts and build off of existing ones. Therefore, it is impossible for an official to come forward and make a distinction between good and bad art. This makes art all the more different from political systems; they don't have nearly as much room for interpretation and no set of politics and ideologies last forever. However, artistic expression is here to stay.
While I am quite disappointed by the results of this wretched election, I can still breath easy knowing that everything I love in this life will remain intact. It is also why I believe that everything will be alright during the next four years. To all disillusioned Americans: try to believe in artistic expression of all types. It will never let you down.
